A comprehensive approach to the analysis of contrast enhanced cardiac MR images.
Current magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology allows the determination of patient-individual coronary tree structure, detection of infarctions, and assessment of myocardial perfusion. Joint inspection of these three aspects yields valuable information for therapy planning, e.g., through classification of myocardium into healthy tissue, regions showing a reversible hypoperfusion, and infarction with additional information on the corresponding supplying artery. Standard imaging protocols normally provide image data with different orientations, resolutions and coverages for each of the three aspects, which makes a direct comparison of analysis results difficult. The purpose of this work is to develop methods for the alignment and combined analysis of these images. The proposed approach is applied to 21 datasets of healthy and diseased patients from the clinical routine. The evaluation shows that, despite limitations due to typical MRI artifacts, combined inspection is feasible and can yield clinically useful information.
Hennemuth
Anja
A
Center for Medical Image Computing, MeVis Research, 28359 Bremen, Germany.
Seeger
Achim
A
Friman
Ola
O
Miller
Stephan
S
Klumpp
Bernhard
B
Oeltze
Steffen
S
Peitgen
Heinz-Otto
HO
D016477:Artifacts; D003287:Contrast Media; D017023:Coronary Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D003326:Coronary Circulation; D025401:Echocardiography, Stress; D005682:Gadolinium; D006801:Humans; D019028:Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cine / Q000379:methods*; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D013382:Subtraction Technique
D003287:Contrast Media; D005682:Gadolinium